Carnival #175: Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers

At Nuke Power Talk, Gail Marcus addresses the issue of the future of the electric grid and the fact that some pundits are declaring that it is quickly becoming obsolete. Although there have been several articles recently pointing out how more people and more companies are opting to generate some of their own electricity, she points out that some of these schemes actually increase the demands on the grid.

Many are having a hard time understanding Entergy’s decision to
schedule the closing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant next
year. Jim Hopf examines the issues, as well as policy adjustments that
could help prevent a similar situation in the future.

Matthew Gidden and Nicholas Thompson, chair and co-chair of the 2013
Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation, recount events and activities of
this year’s delegation in Washington, DC. Students from around the
country held discussions with politicians and policymakers – key
governmental affairs staff, Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners, high-level
staff at DOE, Department of State, and Office of Management and Budget,
as well as over 100 congressional offices – concerning nuclear
engineering education funding, energy policy, and other important
nuclear issues.

A local panel addressed the issue of “what will happen after Vermont Yankee closes.” One panelist had written a paper that seemed rather snarky about nuclear workers. This post at Yes Vermont Yankee describes the justifiable pride nuclear workers can take in their contribution to society.

During the 1970s, the antinuclear movement made a collective decision to use “the waste issue” as a weapon to help force the eventual shutdown of the industry. Though the strategy has not succeeded in forcing any plants in the US to shut down, it has prevented a number of plants from being built. Ralph Nader, one of the most visible organizers of the movement, often referred to the waste issue as the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. He described his movement’s strategy for taking advantage of the perceived weakness in some detail during a 1997 interview as part of a PBS Frontline show titled Nuclear Reactions. The issue continues to be used to slow nuclear energy development.

PM Shinzo Abe said he wants F. Daiichi units 5&6 decommissioned. This seems to have been a unilateral decision on his part, and may well be a big mistake. Abe should rescind his request before it makes the situation with accident cleanup worse than it is now.

American nuclear expert Lake Barrett says releasing mildly-radioactive water to the Pacific will harm no-one. Hearing these calming statements from an internationally-recognized expert on reactor accident recovery seems to have struck home with a few of the news sources in Japan. Are some of Japan’s news outlets starting to get it right?

This week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe rather startled the press with the declaration that he had told TEPCO’s management to decommission the two undamaged units at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Many people appear not to have understood that the fate of these units had not been in any way sealed so far as TEPCO management was concerned. Will Davis knew this; he provides the back story on this topic as well as the present developments.

Whose electricity is cleaner, Ontario’s or Germany’s? Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues crunches the numbers and compares Ontario real time data with Germany pre-nuclear phaseout. His results will disappoint and perhaps outrage those who think that Germany is a paragon of clean electricity.

“… Many if not most Ontario utilities have moved to time-of-use pricing. This means that there are certain hours of the day, called peak hours, when electricity is more expensive … Our electricity system is set up so that at those times we call expensive and polluting fossil-fired generating plants into service. These plants were put into the system and made available for precisely this purpose—to provide power during peak hours. Because they are fossil plants they produce gargantuan amounts of CO …”

Wind turbines kill hundreds of eagles a year, but are not held accountable like other industries with the help of the Interior Department. The large physical footprint probably represents the weakest point of wind energy.